


Won't Say I'm in Love

by NyxErchomai



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Army AU, Ficlet, M/M, One Shot, alternative universe, angsty, may cause feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxErchomai/pseuds/NyxErchomai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey wishes he'd said it when he had the chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Say I'm in Love

Mickey wishes he’d said it. Every day since then he’s spent wishing he could go back and just _say it_. If he had just taken a deep breath and sucked it up and stopped being such a selfish coward long enough to use his big mouth for something useful, he might have saved himself from this. From feeling like this. 

He first saw Ian Gallagher when he was just a kid, seventeen at most; he was just a redheaded nobody in the crowd. Mickey saw him, of course, he saw everything. He saw Ian’s confidence with a gun, and Ian’s determination and ambition. But he never _noticed_ him. No, that came later. That came when he saw Ian shirtless for the first time, and saw the way the muscles moved and bunched – and, damn, he sure as hell wouldn’t say no if the kid asked. 

And then Ian did ask, again and again. Their trysts went from monthly to weekly and, before long, they were all over each other whenever it was possible. They didn’t talk much, and they didn’t interact outside of sex, but Mickey liked it that way. Ian wasn’t like him, though. Mickey knew that Ian was getting attached. It was easy to see, in the way Ian’s hands lingered too long, and in the way he’d press his mouth to Mickey’s skin and mumble his name like it was the greatest thing in the world. Mickey didn’t mind too much. 

But Ian was stubborn, and once he wanted something, he wouldn’t stop until he got it.

“Do you love me?” he asked one day afterwards, as they sat together sharing a cigarette. Mickey froze, then casually leaned to the side and spat in the dirt, trying to ignore the expectant gaze of the kid and feeling like shit doing so.

“Do you?” Ian pressed after a moment.

Mickey stood. “I’m going to eat,” he told the ground, unwilling to look up and see the disappointment on Ian’s face. He turned and left, and tried to ignore the guilt that rose from his stomach when Ian didn’t follow him. 

Ian was cold after that. Distant. He punches Mickey too hard in training. And while Ian might be mad, he still meets Mickey for sex – but it’s fast and angry and Ian doesn’t linger behind for a cigarette anymore. But Mickey doesn’t have to put up with the cold shoulder for too long; word comes within days that they’re going to be deployed. When they find out, Mickey sees Ian’s hand shaking on his gun. He sees a lot of guys shaking. Some of them look happy, but most of them just looked scared. Mickey doesn’t know which one he feels. Maybe a bit of both. 

He’s mostly scared, though, when the world seems to be ending in a blaze of gunfire and pain and he can’t find Ian. He’s mostly scared when he screams into his radio and he asks everyone he sees _Where’s Ian have you seen Ian please tell me where Ian is_ and no one knows and no one cares. And he’s completely scared when he finally hears Ian reply on the radio, voice faint and broken, and Mickey laughs instead of cries when Ian tells him _I’m hurt – I’m hurt pretty bad_ , followed by _I love you_ , said so casually that it’s almostas if the world isn’t falling apart. 

But Mickey can’t say it. He’s got the words in his mouth and they burn all the way down when he swallows and says nothing, and then there’s only static on the other end. Mickey isn’t given time to think about it, because he’s grabbed and dragged away, limp and acquiescent. He’s shoved through doors and pushed along corridors but all he hears is the static and all he feels is the pounding of his own heart in the fingertips wrapped around his gun. 

Later they find Ian’s body and he doesn’t look, he can’t look, because he doesn’t want to think about it. But he can’t stop himself from feeling it, the roiling mass of guilt and disappointment and wasted opportunities that fill his chest until he’s sure he’s going to throw up. And he does, in the back of the helicopter, and no one asks because they all know the answer. They all had radios. He can’t meet their concerned gazes, doesn’t want to see the judgement or the pity, so he stares out of the helicopter and whispers _I love you_ , as if saying it now would make him feel better about not saying it then.

It doesn’t.


End file.
